Access management is the systematic management of the access of resources by employees, partners, contractors and customers of an enterprise, whether manually, through coded applications, or automated. Automated access management requires identities, hence identity management is recommended for sound security.
Several headings under access management include authentication, single sign-on, federated sign-on and privileged access management.
Federated Access Management enables outside users to access resources which their organization doesn’t control. For example, a hosted application which allows access to externally hosted applications without requiring account credentials. It provides a simple mechanism to identify, authenticate, validate, and authorize users and provide them with seamless access to various internal and external resources while Federated Identity Management means having a common set of policies, practices and protocols to manage the identity and trust IT users and devices across organizations.
Growing Need for Federated Access Management
Increasingly, users are accessing fundamentally external systems and external users are accessing internal systems. The rising separation of users from the systems requiring access has resulted from integration of Internet into all aspects of personal and professional life.
Today, federated access management is required:
- To work flawlessly across organizations, platforms, and heterogeneous directories.
- To allow organizations in a federation to integrate, interoperate and manage trust using authentication and authorization policies.
- For easy access of applications with single sign-on capability.
- To avoid identity replication and provide security administration at multiple locations.
- For organizations to share identity attributes based on mutual trust and agreed-upon standards, facilitating authentication and appropriate access to online resources.
Importance to Companies
Federated access management systems integrators are important to a company’s security system due to:
- Complete access control by quick authentication and authorization of users, including employees, partners, and customers from anywhere.
- Efficient password management by web single sign-on that automatically establishes user identities, tracks passwords and provides secure, authorized access.
- Regulatory compliance by providing network access information and detailed reports.
- Business policy enforcement becomes easier.
- It makes integrations with trading partners easier for customers thus increasing satisfaction, repeat use, and greater sales.
- Reduced costs by saving on third-party enrolment.
- Increased security and lower risk by enabling organizations to identify and authenticate a user once, and subsequently using that information across multiple systems.
- Improved privacy by allowing users to control shared information.
- Integrating access management with SIEM helps reduce the impact of security threats.
Hence, a federal access management system is essential for enterprise security in today’s fast-paced world where everything is just a click away.
